Hi All,
I nearly bought one of the 17 hmr's, first used it on prarie dogs in Montana, then back home on bunnies, loved the flat shooting, had a .22 already but i fancied geting one of these, until i heard some bad stories.
It appears there have been problems with the ammo, rounds getting stuck up the barrel due to a misfire and then firing again, boom, in fact there have been injuries in the UK.
It would appear there can be a microscopic crack in the mouth of the casing during manufacture, this lets in moisture, the powder 'clumps' then when it is fired on the primer ignites which is enought to send the bullet half way up the barrel.
So on a forum in the UK it has been asked if you guys in the states have experienced the same?
So it goes without saying, i aint gonna buy one.
Cheers
Richard

Hi All,
I nearly bought one of the 17 hmr's, first used it on prarie dogs in Montana, then back home on bunnies, loved the flat shooting, had a .22 already but i fancied geting one of these, until i heard some bad stories.
It appears there have been problems with the ammo, rounds getting stuck up the barrel due to a misfire and then firing again, boom, in fact there have been injuries in the UK.
It would appear there can be a microscopic crack in the mouth of the casing during manufacture, this lets in moisture, the powder 'clumps' then when it is fired on the primer ignites which is enought to send the bullet half way up the barrel.
So on a forum in the UK it has been asked if you guys in the states have experienced the same?
So it goes without saying, i aint gonna buy one.
Cheers
Richard

I had one and sold it...my problem was the cost of ammo. It didn't do anything my .22 or my .223 doesn't do for cheaper.

My dad bought a Sako when they first came out, maybe 10 years ago? He had all sorts of trouble with it, sent it back twice to get it fixed and finally traded it for a CZ and hasn't had any issues since. The Sako would miss fire, or cases would get stuck in the chamber.

My brother has one in a Salvage and also a Cooper. He hasn't had any issues with either in the 8-9 years he's had them.

Personally, I think they're a touch light for Montana elk.

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Whose Ammo? Is this related to Hornady or another manufacturer? Your statement is the first I have heard about this issue. Most of the time with the 17 HMR the sentence goes "Just bought a 17 HMR to shoot yotes at 200 yards!" LOL John

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My friend has a breech loading single shot model (can't remember the brand). Even though the ammo is pretty pricey, he won't shoot anything else when we go shooting rockchucks or ground squirrels. To my knowledge he hasn't had any problems with his.

However, you have to be super careful when you are with someone that is shooting a .22. One time he grabbed a .22 shell and when he closed the breech the shell fired. Fortunately no one was hurt but is sure scared the hell out of everyone--not to mention how hard it was to get the .22 slug out of the barrel.

Thanks for the replies, so it would appear that there have been no such issues in the US.
I have copied the text from one post on the forum, see below.I have just taken my rifle with the bullet head in the barrel to my local gun shop with all the .17hmr
rounds i have , good timing for once because the sales rep for edgar bros was there who import most of the
ammunition and cz rifles.He confirmed that this fault has been known about since they started selling the ammo,
they currently sell over 5 million rounds of 17.hmr per year in the uk and are getting 20-30 reports of this kind in the same time frame.He said the fault is caused by the neck of the case getting cracked in the annealing/loading
process , this small nearly microscopic crack lets in moisture and causes the powder to clump and therefore not
fire properly.
I examined the suspect case from my rifle and found this to be true, the rep was really honeast and helpfull
he gave me some free rounds and appologised and said that if the rifle had been damaged in any way he would have relaced it f.o.c.So get your spy glasses out boys and check those case necks !

I've put probably 2000 rounds of ammo through my Marlin and don't remember a single misfire or anything, that guns dependable as hell. Most of the time I've shot Hornady but I think I've tried at least a box of everything on the market over here.

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I had a Hornady round misfire and jam in the barrel of my brother's CZ last year. The round did not travel far enougb up the barrel to allow another round to be loaded and I knew by the sound that there was a misfire. In less experienced hand this could have been disasterous.